Amazon Kindle Fire HD 8.9 is Good, But No iPad Killer [REVIEW]

Unboxing the Kindle Fire HD 8.9

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Amazon expands its tablet sights with the bigger, more powerful Kindle Fire HD 8.9. Can it compete against Apple‘s iPad?

If there’s one company that deserves credit for reigniting the iPad competitor market, it’s Amazon. Despite some bugs and an overall blah design, its 7-inch Kindle Fire was the first Android tablet that made sense to consumers who gobbled it up to help the Fire grab 50% of the Android tablet market in just 6 months.

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That tablet essentially opened the flood gates for a new set of ever-more-powerful 7-inchers from, notably, Barnes & Noble and Google. All three companies have already updated their 7-inch offerings to more powerful components and higher-resolutions screens. They’re all still running Android, though Amazon and Barnes & Noble choose to hide the Google OS behind smarter and much more consumer-friendly interfaces.

All this led Apple to finally enter the mid-sized tablet space with the iPad Mini. It’s easily the best-looking tablet of the bunch, but also $ 120 more expensive than its nearest competitor.

The more interesting development, though, is Amazon‘s (and Barnes & Noble‘s) decision to go toe-to-toe with Apple’s full-size iPad and launch the Amazon Kindle Fire HD 8.9 (in 4G LTE and WiFi-only). The move is akin to a middle weight boxer putting on the pounds to take on the Heavyweight world champion. Amazon’s Kindle Fire HD is slightly smaller (the iPad is 9.7-inches), lighter (567g vs. 625g), cheaper ($ 369 for 32 GB model vs. $ 599 for the iPad 4th Gen — Amazon subsidizes with sleep-state ads, that I do not mind) and overall somewhat less powerful. In order to win the battle, the 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD better be pretty nimble on its feet, while able to throw that all important knockout punch.

Short version of this story: the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 does some serious damage, but the iPad 4th Gen gets the decision and retains the tablet leader title.

The Kindle Fire HD 8.9 is by no means a failure. In many ways, it’s as good as the smaller Kindle Fire HD, but throughout my tests I noticed odd bugs and glitches (which should all be fixable by software) and a somewhat disturbing lack of power that’s especially obvious when you put the Fire HD 8.9 next to the iPad 4th Gen

What It Is

If you’ve never seen an iPad and someone handed you the Kindle Fire HD .9, you’d likely say its jet-black, soft-to-the-touch plastic body felt good in your hands and was more than effective at all the core tasks (reading, game playing, e-mail, web browsing).

Design-wise, the 8.9 device looks exactly like the 7-inch model, complete with the too-hard to find volume and power buttons. There are no other physical buttons on this device, but Amazon chooses to hide the few it has by making them the exact same color as the chassis and flush with the body. Every time I use the tablet I do the “where’s the damn button” dance, rotating the Kindle Fire HD round and round until I feel the buttons (since I can barely see them).

I have applauded Barnes & Noble for putting the physical “N” home button right on the face of their Nook HD. Bravo for having the guts to do this. Amazon apparently looks at Apple’s iPad home button and thinks to have anything similar would be seen as “copying” the Cupertino hardware giant, when instead they should realize that it works, consumers like it and tablets without it are at a distinct disadvantage.

Amazon’s interface has you make do with a virtual, slide-out home button that is always available. Problem is, I found times when it wasn’t available. When I played Spider-Man and Asphalt 7, the tiny little left-had bar would disappear and I couldn’t exit the game unless I hit the sleep/power button.

The rest of the Kindle Fire HD 8.9′s body is solid and unremarkable (if you read my Kindle fire HD 7 review, then you know exactly what to expect.). Like the iPad 4th Gen, the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 has a front-facing 720p-capable camera. It’s useful for capturing video, snapping 1 Megapixel images and, probably most important, Skype video chats. Skype has built a fairly sharp-looing Kindle Fire app, though the design doesn’t fully fit the larger 8.9-inch screen. Skype just updated its Android app for better tablet viewing and hopefully, we’ll see this update hit the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 as well.

The iPad also has an HD rear-facing camera. The Kindle fire HD 8.9 does not (Barnes & Noble leave out cameras altogether)

Not Packing a Punch

As a large-screen high-resolution tablet (though iPad’s 2048×1536 retina display beats it), the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 offers plenty of attractive screen real estate for web browsing, book and magazine reading and games. But the results can be mixed. Silk, Amazon‘s custom web browser, was occasionally less than responsive and games, though, they ran well, never looked half as good as they do on the considerably more expensive iPad 4.

Granted, you can’t always find the same high-quality immersive action games on both Android and iOS, but Asphalt 7 Heat is a notable exception and it throws the performance differences between the two tablets into stark contrast. Game play is equally responsive on both platforms: the Kindle Fire HD 8.9’s accelerometer reads my moves just as well as the iPad.

The graphics on the Kindle Fire HD, however, are reduced to blobs and blocks (palm trees without distinct leaves, buildings without discernible windows) . The iPad’s quad-core graphics simply overmatch the Kindle Fire. I have never, for example, seen an iPad draw the game as I was playing, as I did when I tried out The Amazing Spider-Man.

Additionally, I experienced more than my share of crashes with games and even magazine apps like Vanity Fair.

The Good

Not everyone, however, will compare the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 to the iPad. Some will see the $ 299 entry-level price point (for the 16 GB model) and appreciate the power, flexibility and utility of this device. Like all Fire’s before it, the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 makes it easy to consume mass quantities of content. Nearly every menu option: Games, Apps, Books, Music, Videos, Newsstand, puts you just one click away from shopping for fresh content. If you have an Amazon account (and who doesn’t) your desired book, music or movie is just a click away. Plus, you can still easily store any of it locally, and worry about running out of storage space, or in the cloud, and never worry about space or accessibility—you can get to that purchased Kindle content from any Kindle app or registered Amazon device.

Watching movies on the tablet is a pleasure. I streamed a couple through Amazon Prime; they looked good on the 1920 x 1200 screen and the Dolby Stereo speakers produced sharp, loud, almost room-filling sound—an impressive feat not even the iPad can match.

The Kindle Fire HD 8.9 also includes a mini-HDMI-out port, which prompted me to connect the tablet to my 47-inch LED HDTV so we could watch Disney’s Brave. Yes, I had to get up and tap on the Kindle screen each time I wanted to pause and restart the move, but otherwise, I was pretty impressed with how the Kindle handled the task.

Obviously I yearn for an Apple Airplay-like feature on Android tablets (rumor has it one is coming), but this is the next, best thing.

There isn’t a lot to say about the Kindle Fire HD 8.9-inch interface that I did not say in the Kindle Fire HD 7 review. I will note, however, that the increased real estate makes the trademark task carousel seem almost too big. Icons for everything from your recently played Spider-Man game to magazine apps, books and Web sites all sit side-by-side-by side. Some, like book covers, look gorgeous.

Others like a broken web-page link look stupid. Worse yet, none of them have labels, which can occasionally make it hard to identify which app or task you’re looking at. I’m just not sure this interface metaphor is sustainable.

Personally I prefer either the clean consistent look of iOS, or the uber-user friendly, family-oriented Nook HD profile-based one. Amazon may want to take a hard look at those and start over.

Staying Connected

The Kindle Fire HD 8.9 is also Amazon’s first cellular-based tablet. That fact puts it even more squarely in competition with the iPad (which obviously has always had 3G models and now offers blazing fast 4G LTE ones as well on all major carriers).

Amazon’s mobile broadband plans are a little more conservative, with just the AT&T 4G LTE option (the 32 GB 4G model that I tested lists for $ 499, which is still $ 224 less than a comparable iPad 4th Gen).

In my experience, the connectivity is superfast and fairly ubiquitous. Amazon‘s $ 49 (a year) flat fee plan is attractive, but with a cap of 250MB per month of data, it’s unlikely it will satisfy the most data-hungry users. If you do need more data, users can also get 3GB and 5GB data plans directly from AT&T on the device.

At press time, Amazon had not enabled streaming video over LTE. Having it sounds nice, but even with the most generous data plans, streaming video would eat it up faster than you can say, “I’m streaming Back to the Future in HD over 4G LTE on my Kindle fire HD!”

The reality for most users is that WiFi is plentiful and you’ll be hard pressed to find a spot where you can’t connect for free or a small one-off fee. It’s the reason Barnes & Noble’s line of HD Nooks do not include a cellular option.

Review continues after FreeTime Gallery

FreeTime

Kindle HD FreeTime Start

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Perhaps the best new addition to the Kindle Fire family is not a piece of hardware or new component, but the new FreeTime app. Amazon put a lot of loving care into this parental control interface, but almost mucks the whole thing up by hiding the tool under an app that you have to scroll down to (or search) to find. By contrast profiles and age and content controls are baked into the Barnes & Noble Nook HD in a way that makes them impossible to ignore.

Even so, once you do access FreeTime, I think you’ll be pleased with the level of control it gives you. I added test profiles for my two children and then hand-picked every app and piece of content they could access. I was also able to block broadband mobile and even set time limits for access to content and overall screen viewing time (on a per profile basis). The set-up is a bit wonky and it bizarrely switches between landscape and profile screens, but I still applaud the effort. It would make sense for Amazon to move FreeTime into a device set-up screen. If the user has no additional family members or kids using the device, they can easily skip it.

To Buy or Not to Buy

Amazon’s expansive content and shopping ecosystem has always been a strong draw and it’s just as good in this large screen tablet as it was in the very first Kindle Fire. Still, you have to compare it with the equally strong iOS ecosystem, which is no slouch in the content shopping department. Apple doesn’t connect you as seamlessly to physical products, but there’s nothing difficult about shopping on Amazon.com via your iPad. It’s also notable that tablet competitor Barnes & Noble has added movie and TV viewing, rental and purchase.

Ultimately, all of these tablets are offering more and more of the same content options, apps, and features. The decision will likely come down to price, app selection, interface and overall ease of use. The Amazon Kindle fire HD 8.9 scores well on all of these, but does not always lead.

For the price, it’s a great value, but I want Amazon to focus on hardware and interface design for the next big update. Then, they may get my full endorsement.

This story originally published on Mashable here.

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Do drunks have to go to the ER?

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – With the help of a checklist, ambulance workers may be able to safely reroute drunk patients to detoxification centers instead of emergency rooms, according to a new study.

Researchers in Colorado found no serious medical problems were reported after 138 people were sent to a detox center to sleep it off, instead of to an ER.

In 2004, according to the researchers, it’s estimated that 0.6 percent of all U.S. ER visits were made by people without any problems other than being drunk. Those visits ended up costing about $ 900 million.

“Part of the issue has been – as it is in many busy ER departments – there’s a lot of chronic alcoholics that are brought in by ambulance, police or just come in. Often they are brought in because they have not committed a crime or there is limited space in our detoxification center. So the majority were brought to the ER department,” said Dr. David Ross, the study’s lead author from Penrose-St. Francis Health Services in Colorado Springs.

Ross said the ambulance company where he serves as medical director created the checklist with the help of the local detox center, which provided limited medical care by a nurse, and the local hospitals to reduce the number of drunks without medical needs being sent to the local ERs.

They created a checklist with 29 yes-or-no questions, such as whether the patient is cooperating with the ambulance worker’s examination and if the patient is willing to go to the detox center.

The patient was sent to the ER if the ambulance worker checked “no” on any question.

The researchers then went back to look at the patients they transported between December 2003 and December 2005 to see whether or not any of them ended up having serious medical problems at the detox center.

During that two year period, the ambulance workers transported 718 drunks. The detox center received 138 and the local ERs got 580.

Overall, 11 of the patients who were taken to detox were turned away because there was no room, their blood alcohol level exceeded the limit, their family came to pick them up or they were combative.

Another four patients at the detox center were taken to the ER because of minor complications, including chest and knee pain. However, there were no serious complications reported.

“We really believe that we did not miss anybody with a serious illness and injury that didn’t go to the ER as they should have,” said Ross.

But the researchers write in the Annals of Emergency Medicine that their study did have some limitations.

Specifically, the researchers did not plan in advance to do a study when they were creating the checklist, which means their findings are limited to whatever information was collected at the detox center and ERs.

Also, the number of people who were sent to the detox center in their study is relatively small, so it’s hard to tell how many serious complications they’d see among a larger group of people.

“We tried to estimate how likely we would have been to encounter a serious event… We estimated at most we’d encounter three serious adverse events (in 748 patients),” Ross told Reuters Health.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/QgPCT5 Annals of Emergency Medicine, online November 9, 2012.

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Serious About Free Markets? Prove It

On Friday the Republican Study Committee, a policy shop for congressional Republicans, published a memo on how to fix copyright law. By Saturday afternoon the group’s executive director had pulled the memo, which had evidently failed to approach the subject with “all facts and viewpoints in hand.” This is Washington’s way of saying that an interest group hit the roof, and indeed, Ars Technica reports that lobbyists from the “content industry”—Hollywood and recording companies—pressured the group to renounce the memo.

Copyright being in fact broken, you can still read copies of the memo online. It lays out what copyright reform advocates have been saying for years. Copyright protections now extend 70 years past the life of the author; for a corporation, 95 years after publication. This, along with punitive laws on copyright violation, hinders creativity and innovation. These facts aren’t new. What’s new is the tone. Derek Khanna, the memo’s author, writes like an unashamed free marketeer, and in doing so manages to latch on to a larger point: Laws that help businesses often harm markets. From the memo:

Today’s legal regime of copyright law is seen by many as a form of corporate welfare that hurts innovation and hurts the consumer. It is a system that picks winners and losers, and the losers are new industries that could generate new wealth and added value. We frankly may have no idea how it actually hurts innovation, because we don’t know what isn’t able to be produced as a result of our current system. (Emphasis in the original.)

Radical stuff. There’s no one in Washington to lobby for industries that don’t exist yet, and ever so briefly, Khanna and the Republican Study Committee stepped into that breach. Then they stepped back, to gather more facts and viewpoints. Here’s one: Pro-business and pro-market are not the same thing. The most pleasant place for a business is not elbows-out in the middle of a free market, but sitting alone, atop a fat monopoly. Ask your local cable provider. The larger a business gets, the more it has to protect from the companies and industries that might follow it with something better or cheaper. And the best way to protect what you have is to have it written into law.

Real markets, with real competition, are most helpful to newcomers. Small businesses and new industries create new value. Once created, they, too, move to Washington to protect it. Witness the growth of Google (GOOG) and Facebook’s (FB) lobbying operations in the Capitol. Khanna describes extended copyright protection as rent-seeking—in his words, “non-productive behavior that sucks economic productivity and potential from the overall economy.” What’s true of Hollywood and the recording industry could be said of any established industry.

Luigi Zingales, a professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a regular contributor to Bloomberg View, points out that larger companies can lobby for special exemptions in the tax code. This creates complexity in the tax code, which punishes smaller businesses that can’t pay for tax lawyers and don’t have anyone’s buttonhole on Capitol Hill. Zingales prefers simple regulations and simple taxes, which are harder for lobbyists to game and easier for democracies to understand. He sees this as a bipartisan problem. The left is inclined toward more regulation, and the right is pro-business, rather than pro-markets.

The direction Khanna was headed—a defense of open, competitive markets at the expense of existing businesses—is still wide open space, claimed by no party. This summer, conservatives such as Timothy Carney at the Examiner and Yuval Levin at National Review urged Mitt Romney to back markets, not businesses. But he chose not to, even though he, in his day, disrupted existing markets of his own. Some enterprising Republican can still do it. Derek Khanna in 2016! He’s young. Maybe VP.

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Former Ivory Coast leader’s wife wanted by ICC

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The International Criminal Court unsealed an indictment Thursday against former Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo‘s wife on charges including murder, rape and persecution. It was the first time in the court’s 10-year history it has charged a woman.

The world’s first permanent war crimes tribunal said the arrest warrant was issued on Feb. 29 for former first lady Simone Gbagbo for crimes against humanity.

Her husband, Laurent Gbagbo, is already in custody at the court’s detention unit in The Hague facing similar charges stemming from his fight to retain power after losing a 2010 presidential election. If his wife is extradited, they could face justice together in an unprecedented husband-wife trial.

But a senior member of Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara‘s government, who requested anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak to the media, said Ivory Coast has already informed the ICC that the nation will not let her go.

“We informed them of this a long time ago,” he said.

The court’s chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, urged Ivory Coast to extradite Gbagbo.

“The type of crimes committed in the aftermath of the 2010 elections did not happen by chance — they were planned and coordinated at the highest political and military levels and all those bearing the greatest responsibility must be held to account,” Bensouda said in a statement.

She said prosecutors continue to investigate crimes committed by both sides in Ivory Coast’s bloody power struggle and expect to issue further arrest warrants in the future.

“The investigations are objective, impartial and independent, and are conducted in strict accordance with the law,” she said.

Ivory Coast officials are holding the 63 year old under house arrest in the northwest town of Odienne. Last week, Ivorian prosecutor Noel Dje Enrike Yahau said lawyers had questioned Simone Gbagbo there for two days and that the domestic charges against her remained the same: genocide, blood crimes and economic crimes.

Unsealing the ICC arrest warrant issued nearly nine months ago appears to be a tactic by the court to put pressure on Ouattara’s administration to hand over Ms. Gbagbo.

If authorities in Ivory Coast want to prosecute her, they have to convince judges at The Hague tribunal that their case involves the same crimes she is charged with at the ICC. It is a court of last resort, meaning it only takes cases from countries unwilling or unable to prosecute them.

The international court said in the warrant that there is evidence pro-Gbagbo forces deliberately attacked perceived supporters of Ouattara in the aftermath of the election.

Judges who reviewed evidence supporting the charges against Ms. Gbagbo said they found “there are reasonable grounds to believe that Ms. Gbagbo bears individual criminal responsibility for the crimes … as ‘an indirect co-perpetrator.’”

The warrant called Gbagbo an “alter ego for her husband” with the power to make state decisions. It said there is evidence to suggest she “instructed the pro-Gbagbo forces to commit crimes against individuals who posed a threat to her husband’s power.”

Her husband was the first former head of state to be taken into custody by the court when he was extradited to The Hague by the Ivory Coast government last year.

Prosecutors say about 3,000 people died in violence by both sides after Gbagbo refused to concede defeat following the election. Ouattara finally took power in April 2011 with the help of French and U.N. forces.

Ivory Coast is not a member state of the court, but has voluntarily accepted its jurisdiction.

It is very rare for a woman to be charged by an international war crimes court. In the past, the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal convicted former Bosnian Serb President Biljana Plavsic of persecution and sentenced her to 11 years imprisonment.

The announcement of the arrest warrant and Ivory Coast’s refusal to hand over Gbagbo appeared likely to raise tensions between supporters of her husband and those who back Ouattara.

Moussa Toure Zeguen, a leader of the Gbagbo allies in exile in Ghana, said by phone from Accra that the former president’s supporters had no faith in the Ivorian authorities to give Simone Gbagbo a fair trial.

“We don’t trust them. The only thing that Ouattara is doing is revenge,” Zeguen said. “He wants to try us without trying any of the fighters from his side who also committed crimes. It is not fair, and this cannot bring reconciliation.”

____

Associated Press writers Rukmini Callimachi in Dakar, Senegal, and Robbie Corey-Boulet in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, contributed to this report.

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PlayStation Mobile Now Lets PS Vita Owners Create Their Own Games

Think you (or someone you know) has what it takes to write games for the PlayStation Vita? Sony just opened up its PlayStation Mobile game store to anyone who wants in. All you need is a half-decent Windows PC and a Vita, and the cash for a $ 99 developer fee — the same yearly price Apple charges.

​How PlayStation Mobile fits in

PlayStation Mobile isn’t the same thing as the PlayStation Store, where you can buy most PlayStation games and downloadable content. It’s more like a separate department that’s only on the PlayStation Vita and on PlayStation Certified Android devices like Sony’s smartphones and tablets.

In a nutshell, it’s Sony’s version of Xbox Live Indie Arcade, except that it’s for portable PlayStation consoles instead of home Xbox ones. It’s where small, indie studios can get their work published and featured, and where PlayStation Vita owners can look for unique, inexpensive game titles.

​How developers can get started

Game developers can start with PlayStation Mobile by registering on its developer site. After that, they download the PlayStation Mobile SDK (software development kit), and get to work on their games. Third-party software like the free Blender 3D modeling program can be used to create in-game art assets, while the SDK itself is powered by the open source Mono version of C#, the same programming language used by Xbox Live Indie Arcade’s XNA toolkit.

​How PlayStation Mobile compares to other game and app markets

For starters, the $ 99 annual fee and the cost of a PlayStation Vita or PlayStation Certified device put it right up there with Apple’s App Store in terms of up-front expense, except that you don’t have to buy a Mac to write things for it. This is a lot more than the $ 25 one-time fee to get in to the Google Play store, which you can use pretty much any computer and Android device to write for. On the other hand, anyone who’s considering writing PlayStation Vita games probably already owns a Vita to begin with.

Developers aren’t allowed to write non-game apps for PlayStation Mobile, unlike with most markets. Pretty much the only apps seen on the Vita so far are official licensed ones like YouTube and Flickr, while PlayStation Certified devices running the Android OS get their apps from the Google Play store anyhow.

Perhaps the strangest restriction? Developers don’t get to set their own games’ price. They instead specify a “wholesale price,” as though they were selling their games to Sony, and it decides how much to sell them for. In essence, the company chooses its own profit margin on a per-game basis, unlike most app markets’ 70/30 split. It also seems to be able to decide when and whether games go on sale.

​Success stories?

Rami Ismail told “The Story of Super Crate Box” on the PlayStation Blog, explaining how he and a fan managed to bring an iOS game that he’d already made to the PlayStation Vita on very short notice. He said the game “feels right at home” on the portable console, while Joystiq’s JC Fletcher calls the Vita port “the definitive version.” As for whether it’s selling well or not, though, we may have to wait to find out.

Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.

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Tom Hanks, Will Farrell offer custom recordings

NEW YORK (AP) — Imagine having William Shatner supply your outgoing voicemail message. Or maybe you’d prefer Morgan Freeman coolly telling callers to wait for the beep. Or perhaps having Betty White joke around is more your speed.

All it takes is $ 299 and some luck.

The advocacy group Autism Speaks is offering custom-recorded messages from those celebrities as well as Will Ferrell, Carrie Fisher, Tom Hanks, Derek Jeter, Leonard Nimoy, Patrick Stewart and Ed Asner.

From Dec. 3 to Dec. 9, a limited number of 20-second long MP3 messages will be recorded by each celebrity on a first-come, first-served basis for fans to do with as they wish. All requests must be of the PG variety.

Asner, the curmudgeonly Emmy Award winner of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and “Lou Grant,” dreamed up the unusual fundraiser with his son Matt, who works for Autism Speaks.

“I think people will get a charge out of it,” says Asner, who is currently on Broadway in the play “Grace.” ”I’ll probably say, ‘What are you wearing?’ Or, ‘Take it off.’ Something like that.”

All proceeds will support autism research and advocacy efforts.

If he could get a message from one of the other stars participating, which would Asner want?

“I’m awfully stuck on Will Ferrell, having been subjected to him in ‘Elf,’” Asner says. “But they’re all such standouts — Patrick Stewart, Leonard Nimoy, Shatner. The list doesn’t stop. Even Betty White,” he adds about his “MTM” co-star. “She’s still got some good left in her.”

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In “beautiful China”, local polluters still hold sway

TIANYING, China (Reuters) – In ramshackle semi-industrial Tianying in China’s Anhui province, a state-owned lead smelter and foundry sits at the center of town, behind high walls and secure gates that make it look more like a prison than the mainstay of the local economy.

Decades of pollution from it and similar plants — Tianying once accounted for half of China’s total lead output — has made much of the town’s land uninhabitable and its water undrinkable.

In 2007, the Blacksmith Institute, a New York-based non-profit group that helps clean up polluted sites, included Tianying in its list of the world’s most polluted regions.

For China’s new leadership, reversing the environmental destruction wreaked by three decades of unrestrained economic growth is among its highest priorities. Across the country, to the government‘s alarm, social unrest spurred by environmental complaints has become increasingly common.

In a pledge taken up by the new leadership, outgoing President Hu Jintao said in his address to the Communist Party Congress earlier this month that the country had to “reverse the trend of ecological deterioration and build a beautiful China”.

Environment minister Zhou Shengxian reinforced the pledge at a briefing in Beijing last week, saying China needed to “quickly change the current situation in which too much emphasis is put on economic growth and too little on environmental protection”.

Tianying, in the northwest of poor and landlocked Anhui, will test that commitment.

Here, like hundreds of other blackspots from the stripmined cities of the northeast to the mercury contaminated fields in the southwest, the local government is intimately entwined with the most powerful economic interests in town.

“LEAD BOSSES”

In Tianying the government and the town’s largest employer are all but indistinguishable: the Jiaxin Group, owner of the main foundry at the center of town, is a state-owned company.

Unsurprisingly, amidst the town’s dwindling population of around 100,000, the words “beautiful China” elicit skepticism.

“I heard the central government is going to protect the environment more, but it won’t happen here,” said Zhang Weimin, a 58-year-old resident who lives a mile from the smelter. “I don’t trust the local government or the public security bureau or the lead factory bosses.”

Fear of the local authorities is palpable. Many residents were reluctant even to be seen near Reuters correspondents during a recent visit, saying they would be punished by the “lead bosses” as well as the police.

Asked about the state of local water supplies, a worker standing outside the factory gates grinned nervously and muttered “go see for yourself”.

China’s richer, coastal regions have improved environmental conditions over the last 10 years, driven as much by the profit motive as by tougher regulation. Rehabilitated land in Beijing or Shanghai can be turned into lucrative real estate.

But Beijing has struggled to provide the incentives for poorer regions like Anhui to clean up.

“The places I worry about in China are no longer the large wealthy metropolises but the small township and village enterprises – a lot of those are ignored and highly polluting and toxic to the very poorest communities,” said Richard Fuller, the Blacksmith Institute’s founder and president.

ALGAE AND SLUDGE

Tianying today is not as polluted as it was a decade ago. A 2002 study showed lead concentrations were as much as 10 times higher than national standards and children had suffered “adverse effects” as a result of prolonged exposure to the metal, which is especially damaging to children as it can impede learning and affect behavior.

Regulators by then had identified it as a blackspot urgently in need of remedy. The worst small-scale smelters and recycling workshops were shut, and production was left to large state firms like the Jiaxin Group.

Local authorities have also set up a wetland preserve nearby and forced the town’s remaining farmers to vacate land around the factories, replacing pasture with rows of fragile saplings.

The perimeter of the main Jiaxin plant is marked by signs urging residents not to drink water within an 800-metre radius, but even a mile away the risks do not appear to have abated. Some irrigation streams were clogged with algae — the result of fertilizer use — but others were filled with sludge.

“If you look you will see it – they are all black, nothing can grow in them and nothing can live in them,” said Zhang.

As China’s top leaders pound the “beautiful China” rhetorical drum, richer cities have already been forcing big polluters to clean up or relocate. Along the richer east coast, big polluting industries have come under growing pressure from urban residents now willing to fight for a better environment.

Demonstrations against chemical plants or garbage incinerators have erupted across China, from Dalian in the northeast to Xiamen in the southeast.

“You’ve got the local population becoming a lot more aware of environmental issues as they affect them on a day-to-day basis, and that isn’t going to go away,” said James Pearson, founder of Pacific Risk Advisors, which advises investors on potential environmental risks.

“HERE, NO ONE DARES TO PROTEST”

The protests have had an impact on government policy. Environment minister Zhou said last week that local residents needed to be consulted and new projects would now be forced to conduct “social impact assessments” before being approved.

But while the new procedures might help allay the “NIMBY” (Not In My Backyard) fears of affluent urban residents, they will not address longstanding problems like those in Tianying. Despite encouraging words from the central government, standing up to the polluters is not an option, residents said.

“Here, no one dares to protest – we would end up in jail because the lead bosses are protected by the police,” said an elderly resident standing at a kiosk a mile away from the plant.

The interests of the local government are now more aligned with the lead producers than they were a decade ago. Then, as part of the clean-up effort, lead production was taken out of private hands and passed to bigger state enterprises.

That has caused considerable resentment among residents. While pollution has been cut, the surviving plants and local authorities have had little incentive to clean up further, or to rehabilitate ruined land and water supplies.

“That is where they need to spend some serious cash — China has so far been focusing all its efforts on land that is worth selling when it is cleaned up,” Fuller of the Blacksmith Institute said.

Local resident Zhang said little would change under China’s new leaders as long as local industries and the governments that protect them continue to hold sway.

“If Wen Jiabao or Xi Jinping came here now I would certainly tell them what’s going on,” referring to the outgoing premier and anointed president-in-waiting. “But I wouldn’t trust anyone else.”

(Editing by Alex Richardson)

Seniors/Aging News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Twinkies liquidation is approved

21 November 2012 Last updated at 16:27 ET

A US bankruptcy judge has given the go-ahead for the liquidation of Hostess Brands, owner of some of the country’s best known food brands, including cream-filled sponge snack Twinkies.

The hearing was delayed from Monday to allow for last-ditch talks with unions, but those failed.

As a first step in the liquidation of the company, Hostess is expected to lay off about 15,000 of its employees.

But Hostess’ advisers are confident that parts of the business can be sold.

In a statement, the company blamed the need for liquidation on a strike by the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco and Grain Millers (BCTGM) union, which started on 9 November.

Hostess Brands had sought protection from its creditors through Chapter 11 bankruptcy in January, but said it could not afford to continue operating through a strike.

The BCTGM blamed the company’s problems on years of mismanagement and being saddled with debt by private equity owners.

But Hostess said: “The wind-down was necessitated by an inflated cost structure that put the company at a profound competitive disadvantage”, adding that the main problem was its collective bargaining agreements with its staff.

‘Iconic brands’

One of the firm’s lawyers said there had been a “flood of enquiries” about buying some of the brands.

Advisers to Hostess Brands said they had been showing a potential buyer for the Drake’s cakes brand around the factory in New Jersey on Tuesday.

“These are iconic brands that people love,” said Joshua Scherer from Perella Weinberg Partners.

Hostess expects to keep on about 3,200 staff to help shut down its properties, but only about 200 of them are likely to still be employed at the firm by the end of March.

Hostess said the liquidation would mean the closure of 33 bakeries, 565 distribution centres, approximately 5,500 delivery routes and 570 bakery outlet stores.

BBC News – Business

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Ivory Coast: New prime minister named

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (AP) — President Alassane Ouattara has tapped Foreign Minister Daniel Kablan Duncan to serve as prime minister in a new government one week after the surprise dissolution of cabinet.

The appointment of Duncan, a member of the PDCI party of former President Henri Konan Bedie, was announced at a press conference Wednesday by Amadou Gon Coulibaly, general secretary of the presidency.

Ouattara dissolved the cabinet last week over a feud between his political party and the PDCI over proposed changes to the country’s marriage law.

The PDCI supported Ouattara in the November 2010 runoff election in exchange for the prime minister’s post, helping him defeat incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo. Gbagbo’s refusal to cede office led to five months of violence that claimed at least 3,000 lives before Ouattara’s forces won.

Africa News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Tablets, discounters top U.S. holiday shopping lists: Reuters/Ipsos

(Reuters) – Move over computers, your sleek siblings are the prized gift of the holidays.

One-third of U.S. consumers are thinking about buying an electronic tablet this holiday season, according to a new Ipsos poll conducted for Thomson Reuters. And 22 percent of those who want one of the hot devices said they plan to cut back on other holiday purchases in order to afford them.

But the new, smaller tablet from industry leader Apple Inc – the iPad mini – is not taking the world by storm. Only 8 percent named the iPad mini as their first choice, the same percentage that said they would like to buy a Microsoft Corp Surface tablet.

“There has been a lot of controversy about the fact that the iPad mini is $ 329, that the price might not be right,” said Jharonne Martis, director of consumer research for Thomson Reuters.

Still, Apple’s full-size iPad remains the leader, with 25 percent picking it as the tablet of choice while 15 percent want to buy Amazon.com Inc’s Kindle Fire, and another 15 percent want a Samsung Galaxy device.

Apple sold about 11 million iPads during the 2011 holiday quarter, and this year analysts expect it to sell about 16 million iPads and 8 million iPad mini tablets, Martis said.

Retailers have prepared for a big tablet season. Walmart, for example, doubled its orders for iPads and other tablets and will offer an iPad 2 with a $ 75 gift card for $ 399 as one of its specials on Thanksgiving night.

Laptops are still on the wish lists for 32 percent of respondents, while 18 percent would like to buy desktop computers and only 13 percent are looking for ultrabooks.

SPENDING LESS OR STILL UNSURE

Meanwhile, retailers may want shoppers to believe the holiday shopping season begins sometime in September. But the poll shows that most consumers still are waiting until around Thanksgiving to start their holiday shopping.

Walmart, Toys R Us and others started promoting their layaway plans in September as a way to reserve hot items.

While 11 percent said they were using layaway more this year than last year, 71 percent said they were not.

Seventy-two percent have done no shopping yet or less than a quarter of it, the poll found.

“The fact that 72 percent haven’t really started yet reinforces why Black Friday is coined the official beginning of the holiday season because that’s truly when shoppers start to open their wallets,” Martis said.

Most of that shopping will still take place in stores, despite the rise of online shopping and fears of shoppers using physical stores as showrooms for products they will buy online using their mobile devices.

“It is still growing, but it is still a very small portion of retail sales,” Martis said of mobile shopping.

Going to a mix of different types of stores is the plan for 42 percent of the respondents planning to go to stores, while 31 percent plan to do most of their holiday shopping at a discount chain such as Walmart, Target or Kmart, which will all be open for at least some of Thanksgiving Day to court shoppers.

The U.S. economy and possible tax hikes continue to be a concern for some, with 28 percent saying that they are spending less this year because of the fiscal cliff, though 58 percent said the fiscal cliff was not affecting their holiday spending plans.

Two-thirds of shoppers said they were planning to spend the same amount as last year or were unsure about their spending plans, while 21 percent plan to spend less and 11 percent plan to spend more. Also, 60 percent said are choosing to shop closer to home to save on gas.

Contrary to the cry of some traditional retailers, “show rooming” is not the norm for most people.

When asked how, if at all, they use a mobile device while in stores, 63 percent said they do not even pull out their smartphones while shopping. Fifteen percent compare prices online and 14 percent said they research products.

Amazon is the top online retailer shoppers plan to visit more than they did last year, with 42 percent picking it, 38 percent choosing Walmart, 23 percent selecting Target and 14 percent picking EBay.

Physical stores remain the top destination, with 26 percent planning to shop primarily at stores and only 14 percent planning to shop primarily online.

The poll is the first in a series that Ipsos will conduct during the holiday season.

The findings are from an Ipsos poll conducted for Thomson Reuters from November 15-19, 2012, with 1,169 American adults interviewed online. Results are within the poll’s credibility intervals, a tool used to account for statistical variation in Internet-based polling. The credibility interval was plus or minus 3.3 percentage points.

(Additional reporting by Brad Dorfman; Editing by Edward Tobin and Leslie Gevirtz)

Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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